RedLetterMedia is a film production company with a channel on YouTube and a webzone that produces a number of films and shorts. The company was founded by Mike Stoklasa in Arizona, but it later moved to Milwaukee, WI, and it shifted to its current format, which involves a small creative team and has made submissions for various film festivals. The group's real claim to fame are the Mr. Plinkett Reviews, in which Stoklasa plays the acerbic Plinkett; the reviews tackle primarily sci-fi films.

In these reviews, Harry S. Plinkett is an elderly man (he claims in one review to be 119 years old) with Deadpan Snarker and Serial Killer tendencies who's been in various marriages where his wives have died under suspicious circumstances (and he routinely kidnaps other women as well).

Plinkett also released a RiffTrax-style audio commentary for The Phantom Menace (for anyone who was willing to watch it again, anyway).

Though Stoklasa has refused to do formal Plinkett Reviews for the original trilogy of Star Wars films, he did release an audio commentary, slightly more serious and analytical than his ersatz-RiffTrax of The Phantom Menace, for the originalStar Warsfilm.

Stoklasa also released a Plinkett-style commentary for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, where Plinkett presents the film as a noble failure, a well intentioned concept that was ruined though an amazing combination of Shatner's ego (while most reviewers tend to put all the blame on Shatner, Plinkett contends that while it was a major factor, it was far from the only, or even prevailing, one), Executive Meddling (who demanded unnecessary humor be injected into the script), a WGA strike that prevented a necessary rewrite just before shooting began, a Teamsters strike that held up trucks and forced many exterior shots to be scrapped, ILM pulling out of doing new SFX (they had otherthings to do) resulting in sub-par SFX, and a reduced budget.

RedLetterMedia has spawned numerous spinoff shows:

Half in the Bag, a traditional review series featuring Mike Stoklasa and Jay Bauman discussing new releases. The show is more in the style of Siskel & Ebert, and while the two are supposed to be repairing Plinkett's VCR, they usually spend the whole time drinking beers and reviewing movies. The Plinkett character also appears, played by Rich Evans.

Best of the Worst. in which various members of the RedLetterMedia studio host a roundtable discussion of three B-Movies.

Wheel of the Worst: Fan-contributed VHS movies are nailed to a "Wheel of the Worst" and spun. The needle determines which three movies will be suffered—er, viewed by Mike, Jay, Rich and the rest of the crew, and discussed afterward. The "Best" of the videocassettes is spared, while the worst one is destroyed in a violent manner. The execution method is different in each episode. (The wheel itself was thrown in a dumpster in one episode, and returned by the Milwaukee Sanitation Department, to Mike and Rich's dismay, with even more tapes attached to it.)

Previously Recorded: A video game retrospective and review show with Jack Packard and Rich Evans. In addition, they host Wednesday-night livestreams of various games on Twitch; Jack does a solo stream on Sunday nights, as well.

re:View: Similar to Half in the Bag above, but focusing on movies that Mike and Jay like, as well as movies they want to discuss more in-depth than they could in Best of The Worst. It's also meant to highlight movies the audience may not have seen, and will feature other members of the RLM crew.

In addition to its web content, the production company also makes feature-length, relatively No Budget films. Most of these films are horror, though they have also released Space Cop, an action/comedy very much in the style of their web videos.

Their Analysis of the Star Wars Prequels

Criticism of the Star Wars prequels can normally be written off as easy (as well as being a bit behind the times), but the Phantom Menace review was widely spread around the internet and was even tweeted about by celebrities such as Damon Lindelof and Simon Pegg. Plinkett's reviews, while often containing borderline dark and tasteless humor, offer many insightful explanations as to why the prequels pale in comparison to Lucas' original trilogy — and these explanations don't involve Jar-Jar (he's barely mentioned throughout all three reviews).note During the Revenge of the Sith review, Plinkett does refer to Binks as a "loathsome cunt''. Out of universe, Stoklasa gave an explanation that he thinks Jar Jar was a lousy character, but had the most coherent story arc of the prequels characters, and was actually one of the few things that made sense in the prequels. Some key critiques of the prequels include:

The lack of anything resembling an empathetic everyman character for the audience to relate to (including the complete lack of a central protagonist in Phantom Menace—even ruling out Anakin due to him appearing late in the film and having no real control over what is going on around him). In the Phantom Menace review, Mr. Plinkett gave four separate people the task of describing four characters (Han Solo, C-3PO, Queen Amidala, and Qui-Gon Jinn) without mentioning their appearances or actions — while they each were able to expound greatly on the first two, they all fumbled for words for the prequel characters.note Rich Evans on Amidala: "That's fucking impossible. She doesn't have a character."

The extravagance and over-reliance on special effects and blue-screen filming to create a fantastic world in lieu of actual story. (At one point, Plinkett calls back to a much-younger George Lucas, who once said special effects were a means to an end.) Plinkett also observes that having the actors perform their roles almost entirely in front of blue/green screens gave them nothing to interact with, so their performances suffered. Actors would stand around awkwardly during dialogue scenes because they had no physical sets to perform in, and they wouldn't react convincingly to alien characters who were added in later with CGI because the actors had nothing to act against. Additionally, the films' cinematography and editing suffered because Lucas had no sets that required him to physically move his camera around in to get shots, resulting most of the movie being shot in boring, flat, Shot Reverse Shot camera angles with unimaginative editing.

Compare with Titanic, a film written by a man as limited in developing his characters as George Lucas, which is arguably the last 'Golden Age' movie made with practical effects and real sets, reserving its CG visuals for special circumstances.

The "dissolution of tension" in nearly every scene that should be exciting, mainly because viewers either don't care about or don't understand what's at stake in the scene (e.g. the fight scene with Darth Maul), don't understand what's happening (due to poor storytelling and/or cluttered visuals), or can't project ourselves into the outlandish events that happen (e.g. the overly long lightsaber duel over an erupting volcano in Revenge Of The Sith). The other issue Plinkett expresses are the Boring Invincible Hero aspect in which every problem is solved with a lightsaber.note Plinkett states his interest was heightened during the arena scene from Attack of the Clones — until the lightsabers were introduced, elliciting from him a Drone of Dread.

Reusing imagery and concepts from the original trilogy without understanding why such scenes worked on their own in the first place. (In the Attack of the Clones review, Plinkett compares Leia's desperation at losing Han Solo to Boba Fett at the end of The Empire Strikes Back — and the audience's emotional investment in those events — to Amidala's weak retort at failing to capture Count Dooku.)

While there are a few overly-nerdy jabs at continuity and nitpicking at illogical story elements, much of the commentary is given from a filmmaker's point of view, which made the reviews enlightening for numerous viewers. A number of Star Wars fans disliked the approach — and one fan even wrote a 117-page rebuttal of the Phantom Menace review (which Plinkett scoffed at). The style of the Star Wars reviews (and the reviews which followed those) are similar in style to his earlier Star Trek movie reviews (though those reviews nitpicked even more, mostly about details and inconsistencies between the movies and the show).

Aborted Arc: Plinkett being apprehended by the police. It happens at the end of his Phantom Menace review, it's mentioned that he's "in the clink" in the Attack of the Clones preview, and then it's never mentioned again.

"Stay back, coppers, I'm packin' heat!"

The preview of his Episode II review seems to suggest that the ghost of Johnny Cash magically & inexplicably broke him out of jail.

It's also weird how Mr. Plinkett gets feedback from other people about describing characters from the old and new prequels instead of them fleeing in horror or being kidnapped.

Always Chaotic Evil: In the Sith review, Plinkett suggests that the Clones should have been the villains of the Clone Wars from the start, like an army of monsters attacking the Republic from somewhere in space, instead of a conviently disposable army for the Republic note this was actually the original backstory for the Clone Wars in Legends material, specifically the Thrawn trilogy, but that got retconned with the prequels. His argument is that if they were, the Republic would've been forced to draft countless ordinary men into service, dying by the millions to fight the war, which would have added some tension and emotion to the conflict and (along with the other consequences of such a brutal war) made Palpatine's obvious power-grab seem more justified in-universe.

An Aesop: Plinkett dispenses several of these over the course of reviewing the prequel trilogy, but at the end of the Revenge of the Sith review, and as the very last line of the review proper, he distills everything he's said into a single sentence:

Plinkett: And in the end, all the computers in the world can't generate the most basic thing that a movie needs: an emotional connection with the audience.

The Alcoholic: You'd need a drink, too, if you had to review these movies.

"Maybe It's time for another vodka gimlet... [trips over furniture]GW'OOH FCK!"

All Is Well That Ends Well: Following his duel with Nadine, subsequent hospital stay, and near-assassination, Plinkett cheerfully returns home to...microwave his cat.

All There in the Manual: Plinkett abhors this trope, or at least despises the fact that fans so often invoke it to explain away the all but incomprehensible plot and setting of the Star Wars prequels:

Padawans are raised in a creepy, cult-like environment where they lose all their free will.

The Old Republic is composed entirely of asexuals. The only person in the universe getting any action is Jimmy Smits! (Not counting Palpatine, who gets aroused by hatred, and Shmi who was making out with the Force)

The maid in Baby's Day Out is the baby's real mother, and Mrs. Cotwell is into servant sex.

The kid in Cop Dog is a jibbering lunatic.

They don't call him "Kid Fisto" 'cause he's into chicks, if you know what I mean.

Aluminum Christmas Trees: Invoked in the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull review where Plinkett states that the scene where Mutt uses a snake as a rope to get Indy out of quicksand couldn't happen since the snake would get ripped in half.

Mr. Plinkett: I don't know, it just doesn't seem realistic to me. Now go ahead and post comments about how people have used snakes as ropes for years in the Amazon or whatever, you fuckin assho-

Ambiguously Gay: Mr Plinkett himself. Apparently, he made out with George Lucas and he compliments William Shatner's "merkin"note if you don't know what it means, don't look it up in the Star Trek the... Star Trek review.

We should also remember that he's a deranged, psychotic, senile old man who's frequently drunk, so make what you will of his occasional hilarious offhand comments.

Angrish: several minor occasions scattered throughout the series, usually with The Scary Voice, but the best example would have to be when confronted with the asspull of Yoda telling Obiwan how to talk to Force Specters.

And then Yoda tells Obiwan that he should talk to Qui-Gon's ghost! (Laugh Track plays) WHAT THE FUCK?! No-one-evermentionedanyoneeverdevertime 'bout talkin' to ghosts!!!!!!"

Mr. Plinkett: I don't think I've ever seen a movie like this, with mind rape, child slave labor, guy getting impaled on a spike and then pulling it through his own guts, horrific scenes of death, close-ups of Marina Sirtis...

He even does a positive example of this, listing two really important good things cultures with technology has before listing something far less important.

He complains about the recent trend of Star Trek movies all being revenge films. "I'm filled with so much hate I don't know what to do with it! Usually I turn it into murder. Or complaining at the Post Office about the price of stamps."

Mike is a fan of the famous jazz artist (and Plinkett's contemporary) Frank Sinatra, to the point that virtually every review has featured Rat Pack-era music. Often, the lyrics double as jabs at George Lucas, as well.

Ax-Crazy: He's killed several of his ex-girlfriends and wives, several Koreans, and now needs to go because his cat isn't going to milk itself.

Bait and Switch: In the Episode 3 review, he talks about the "funniest scene in movie history". He goes through the part when Vader arises in detail, and shows the moment as... Yoda telling Obi-Wan to talk to Qui-Gon's ghost.

Bait-and-Switch Comment: In the Revenge of the Sith review, he jokes that if you arrange one letter in Sith, you get the word Tshi, which he claims is Chinese for "Disappointed in the cooking of the duck meat." (A quick google search reveals its just a made up word that has no Chinese meaning.)

"Fuckin' Ray Charles could have seen that coming… and he doesn't even know anything about Star Wars!

Another good one from the same review, where he rants about how reviews have called the movie better because it's Darker and Edgier

MY STOOL IS DARK! And doctor says that's bad! …I don't know why he thinks he knows so much about interior decorating though (Rim Shot and a picture of a leather stool)

Avatar ushered in a new age of 3-D film-making.note And by age I mean six months.

Chalks up the misfire of Star Trek V to an issue of ego. "James Doohan's ego was out of contr—!!...wait."

Continued in the conclusion of his Titanic review, Plinkett ends up rambling about how James Cameron was very inaccurate. He goes on to mention how he actually crashed the ship because another talking pizza roll talked him into it, the ship was unmanned as Plinkett's mother was having sex with the captain at the time, aliens caused the ship to snap in two, his father died hiding in a suitcase, and the whole thing was covered up out of embarrassment.invoked

Just relocate the fuckin' people, ok? It's what we did to the Indians on Earth, and look how that turned out! We have so many wonderful casinos.

Plinkett argues at length that the Star Wars prequels retroactively have this effect on much of The Empire Strikes Back. In the latter, The Reveal that the "great warrior" and master of the Force, Yoda, should turn out to be a small, physically unintimidating creature was intended to illustrate that the Force had an ephemeral quality that went beyond the physical. By contrast, in the prequel trilogy, where the same small, unintimidating creature has to engage in physical combat despite severe handicaps, the implied Aesop is much more cynical. That the DVD Special Features have George Lucas on record explaining that he did this based on the oh-so-flimsy logic that, in Lucas' words, "everyone's looking forward" to seeing Yoda fight because "we haven't seen him do that yet" didn't help matters either.

Broken Bird: Nadine the Hooker seems to have become one, as the trailer for the Episode III review shows her heading to Plinkett's house to kill him and apparently being insane herself.

Buffy Speak: "Every character is dumb! But who's the dumbdest? Let's find out..."

Mmm, pizza rolls. They're hot, and pizza-y.

"Pass the Vicodins. No wait, we need Ambiens. ...well, we sure need somethingens."

"Now I've anal-yzed this scene with a team of scientists/engineers/perverts/from the Hair Club for Men/cheerleaders/dead people/two experts on the field of love, porn star Joslyn James and Tiger Woods/etc."

Caustic Critic: Mr. Plinkett criticizes a lot of the movies he reviews. It's deconstructed because he is not a very nice person outside his reviews either.

Child Hater: Zigzagged. While Plinkett claims in the Episode I review that "nobody likes little kids, especially little kids who can't act," the Indiana Jones review repeatedly shows that he has a bit of a soft spot for "sexy Indian children."

Comically Missing the Point: After condensing his reviews of dog-themed kid's movies into one unintelligible, mumbling cacophony, Plinkett concludes that it was a horrible idea:

"I totally forgot to include Karate Dog and Santa Paws!"

In an update video, Plinkett awakes to find himself Buried Alive with a lot of DVDs and a player lying around in his coffin.

Why would they bury me with these movies? They must not want me to review them...

From his Kingdom of the Crystal Skull review when dismissing George Lucas' insistence on including aliens in the film:

"Why is he so important. Since when does being a billionaire that owns the company making the movie mean you have some kind of say in it?"

Complexity Addiction: Plinkett notes that the whole plot of The Phantom Menace hinges on Palpatine setting into motion his insanely convoluted, 13 year long scheme to get into power by having the Trade Federation stage an invasion on Naboo so he could take advantage of the crisis to advance himself politically. But Plinkett points out that Palpatine's entire plan could have been easily foiled from the beginning if Queen Amidala turned out to be a coward and just signed the treaty.

Composite Character: In his Phantom Menace review, Plinkett suggests that Qui Gon Jinn and Obi Wan Kenobi should have been combined together to form a character called Obi Wan Kenobi, since Obi Wan could have basically served the same role as Qui Gon, who Plinkett considers to be a pointless addition to the film.

Country Matters: Uses this word twice to date, once to describe Jar Jar Binks, once to describe Rose's mother in the Titanic review.

Cozy Catastrophe: Points out that the reason it's hard to care about the Clone Wars in the prequel trilogy is that it never really seems to affect anything. Aside from the war being mainly between equally disposable robots and clones, Coruscant, where most of the focus is, is still just as lively and active in the third movie (when the war's been going on for quite a while) was it was in the first.

Creator's Apathy: invoked Plinkett often seems so genuinely uninterested in actually reviewing his movies, that sometimes he doesn't even care to finish words or to enunciate them whatsoever properly. This works perfectly with Mr. Plinkett's trademark sloppy style, as the sloppy style itself seems coordinated with brilliant craft. Implied in the Star Wars reviews. See, for example, the mention of two Jedi Knights in the Phantom Menacetitle scroll or the difference between Gungas and Gungans.

Before complaining some more about Crystal Skull, I thought it'd be fair to point out some of the things I liked about the film. Don't worry, this won't take long.

Titanic aimed for the middle. And it hit the target perfectly.

Decided By One Vote: Where did the Star Trek franchise go horribly wrong? [Why hello, Generations.] Now, I ain't sayin' no one in particular is to blame... [Unrelated publicity video of Rick Berman]

Delicious Distraction: Subverted and combined with Squick of the highest order. Plinkett is at one point comparing the Filler in the Star Wars prequels to the filler in Twinkies, when he suddenly goes "Mmmm...I like to fuck my cat..."

When weighing the faults of Titanic's leads, Plinkett can't find any aside from a tendency toward suicide and littering. He then lists off the memorable traits of Hockley (Billy Zane): Objectifies women, beats woman, and tries to shoot at women.

"So Yoda might be a powerful Jedi, but wise he is not. (Get it? I—I did like a Yoda thing?)

"Maybe he should download a program into his brain about child care." (That was a Matrix joke! Didya get it?!)

The Cop Dog is suffering from "post-partner depression. Geddit? I SAID GEDDIT?

Although Plinkett also subverted this: His attempts to save time by giving the description of four different films at once are acknowledged as a bad idea not because his speech was incomprehensible, but because he forgot two films he wanted to describe. He then discusses six films at once.

Back in 2005, Mike Stoklasa did a precursor videos to his Star Wars reviews, called the United States of Noooo!!! which explored what he considered to be the Jumping the Shark Dethroning Moment Of Suck of Star Wars, namely, the scene when Darth Vader utters a Big "NO!" after Palpatine tells him Padmé is dead. While rather funny, the video is also a very ordinary talk-to-the-camera video, without the antics that made Plinkett's reviews famous. Stoklasa's uncannily good imitation of Palpatine's voice can already be heard in this video.

The early Pinkett reviews of the Star Trek films are also this. Plinkett's sociopathic tendencies are only hinted at, his victims are never shown, the reviews are shorter, and the reviews aren't as chronologically organized as the later reviews.

Easily Forgiven: Nadine waves the white flag in her Revenge video. Unfortunately for Plinkett, it seems he's made an even worse enemy...

Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: During the review for Attack of the Clones, Harry is discussing how uninterested he feels about a battle between two expendable armies (Clones and Droids) and mentions that at least in the Phantom Menace, the audience might have felt something for the Gungan Army. Before he can complete the sentence, he realises that he is using the Phantom Menace as a positive example.

The Faceless: Mr. Plinkett's face actually has been seen in several instances, both in illustrations and in a still photo from one of the Star Trek reviews. Throughout the Star Wars material, however, Mr. Plinkett seems to be abiding by this trope; we see only his first person perspective while he wanders through his basement and captures women.

Fanservice/Toplessness from the Back: The inclusion in his Avatar review of the iconic shot of Rose from Titanic dropping her robe to show her butt to the audience. May also apply to his sex puns (with accompanying sexy pictures) for Megan Fox, Natalie Portman and Chris Pine.

Filler: Plinkett considers the entire Podracing sequence of The Phantom Menace to be this and that it adds absolutely nothing to the plot, and notes that Qui Gon could have easily gotten everyone off Tatooine by just selling the Queen's ship to Watto off the bat, and then discreetly getting off the planet to Coruscant on another ship that wouldn't draw attention to themselves.

Arguably the Baby's Day Out review and Cop Dog review to some fans, as no one would really care much about these movies and would rather see Plinkett review another important Blockbuster. These shorter reviews would tease the audience for the next major review.

Flanderization: Plinkett feels the way The Force was presented in the original trilogy had an ethereal quality to it that inspired genuine awe and wonder (using Yoda's mere existence and character to demonstrate this), also due in part to how sparingly and carefully it was used and presented (such as Yoda humbling Luke by successfully lifting the X-Wing out of the swamp), and that the prequels trivialized it by playing up the powers aspect of it way too much, turning it into an excuse to show characters constantly spamming force telekinesis and the super acrobatic abilities it allows, making it come off as a mundane way to show off fancy effects and video game stunts.

Plinkett says that the Star Trek remake took minor character traits from all the original crew members and ELECTRIFIED them, to make the characters more interesting.

Also applies to Plinkett himself; in the earlier reviews his penchant for murder is just hinted at with a few offhand comments, while in the later reviews we actually see him tormenting his victims and his serial-killer tendencies are mentioned much more often and become much more central to his character.

For Want of a Nail: Reviewing Star Trek (2009) creates an alternate timeline where Plinkett's cat is still alive. Cue the chaos.

"Bambi's alive in this timeline! ...Only, now she's my first cat. I'm so confused."

Foreshadowing: "DON'T TRY TO ESCAPE LIKE THE OTHER ONE!" He says near the end of the Episode II review to the two girls making the Puzzles.

Four Lines, All Waiting: Plinkett tears into Episode I for this happening at the climax. Well, not him so much as selected clips of Lucas and co. looking less than comfortable about having done this and not being able to change it so late in production.

Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: Parodied in Plinkett's occasional youtube updates where Palpatine harasses him into making reviews, although these mostly exist so he can show off his impressive Ian McDiarmid impression.

The 108 page rebuttal to the TPM review is, however, astoundingly real.

Plinkett's serial killer tendencies make a lot more sense the more we learn about his past. His father died on the Titanic when he was six, and Plinkett has a history of mental illness. Not to mention that he's senile.

In the Episode III review, Plinkett mentions that he once threw a psychologist out a window for asking about his "dear mother."

"Bury them under the floorboards, Harry. No one has to know. It'll be our little secret."

Go Mad from the Revelation: In his review of The Phantom Menace when a plot hole so enrages him he begins to wonder if someone was screwing with his meds, leading to an... interesting scene in which he repeats "Who's fucking with my medicine?!" while he scoops several Pizza Rolls into a paper envelope before slurring "What's wrong with me?!" and blacking out.

And again in his Attack of the Clones review upon seeing the prop from Star Trek that has red lights moving back and forth in one of the The Last Starfighter clips and then seeing PKE meters being used in another movie.

"Do those guys have PKE meters? Am I going insane?! MY BRAIN IS COLLAPSING IN ON ITSELF-okay, back to the review."

Finally, in Revenge of the Sith, he has an almost pitiful breakdown as he realises just how much of the film refers back to the original trilogy.

Handicapped Badass: An evil version in Mr. Plinkett. Despite having one amputated leg, he is at least able to kidnap several women and fight his way through numerous police officers at the end of his Phantom Menace review (despite being shot at least once)

Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: Harry explains the somewhat tacked-on nature of the Spock/Uhura romance as a case of the NotGays wherein the director draws undue time away from the plot in order to establish that a character is in fact heterosexual. He then goes on to show how other characters have a case of the NotGays and begins to refer to it as the disease the director seems to think it is.

"Babies are fragile! This kind of disgusting, misleading and irresponsible film should've never been made! Now to talk about my favorite scene: The one where Baby Bink is trapped in a gorilla cage and nearly Eaten Alive..."

"Can't they leave this sex stuff out of a kid's movie? I mean, kids have up until they're eight to start havin' sex, leave 'em with those precious few years of innocence, for God's sake!'

Generations and Crystal Skull convinces Plinkett that it's time for retirement, and he Rolls Into the Sunset for good. —Wait, who's gonna review The Matrix, Twilight, and Red Tails? "Shit, I ain't even close to done yet!!"

After several shot-by-shot comparisons of Titanic with previous films based around the ship, Plinkett confesses that it's too much to sort out; he's too busy for this. He then continues to play an endless stream of camera shots cribbed by James Cameron and stitched back together, talking over them for a solid five minutes.

After slamming Lucas for selling out and using the prequels to sell merchandise, Plinkett takes a time out to promote the "Kodak Printer Challenge".

Idiot Ball: Another pet peeve of Plinkett, such as Padme being transferred to be "processed", even though the villains not knowing what happened to the Jedis and the fact she's central to their entire plans.

Idiot Plot: invokedDiscussed in the Star Wars reviews. Contends that if any of the characters had exercised even the tiniest amount of common sense in the prequels, Palpatine's plans would have been easily thwarted and Anakin wouldn't have become Darth Vader.

Baby's Day Out as the modern-day take on The Three Stooges: There's the slightly smarter one that's in charge, there's the dumb one, and lastly the guy that was in The Matrix. Whaaaaa?

In a visual twist on this, when showing how a protagonist "often gets the girl in the end as icing on the cake", he shows four clips of pairs kissing... last of which is Charlie hugging Willy Wonka.

Likewise, James Cameron's fifth wife is a Na'vi.

A very telling comparison of Indiana Jones' adversaries and their on-screen crimes. Spalko's dossier says, "Patriot, Hero of Socialist Labor."

In his Cop Dog review he names a series of dog based children's film titles. One of these is Ghost Dog.

In the Episode III review, Plinkett mentions how a long, uncut computer-generated shot is no longer impressive, since entire movies are made by computers without real actors these days. As examples, he shows The Incredibles, Toy Story, and Transformers.

Laugh Track: Employed sarcastically during the Prequel reviews, such as when Anakin and Padme are in a romantic mood, or when Yoda tells Obi-Wan to talk to Qui-Gon's ghost (preceded by a "WhaaaaAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaat the FUCK?!?!" from Plinkett.)

The first example was his interviewing of co-workers to get their impressions on the Prequel characters. The bombastic John Williams score screeches to a halt as they search for words to define Qui-gon or Padme.

"................monotone?"

During the Credits Gag in KOTCS, Plinkett plugs a few of his YouTube comments. "I Squeeze Gats" abruptly stops when he reads a (presumably real) comment from one of YouTube's innumerable trolls.

Malaproper: Related to the trope below, he does this with names. Thus we have Boba Fett instead of Jango Fett, Queen Armadillo, Ewan McDonald, Kate McGowan, Cliff Huxtable, General Grievance, William Shakesman/Shatner, et cetera.

Malicious Misnaming: Of disliked (and hated) Star Wars characters are given this treatment; for example, characters like Queen Amidala, Count Dooku, and General Grievous are called "Amig-dahlen", "Doh-koo", and "Grievance" respectively.

Merchandise-Driven: Plinkett felt that Star Wars started heading his direction as early as Return of the Jedi (mainly singling out the presence of the Ewoks) but really got out of hand in the prequels. He also joked that the reason Return of the Jedi had its name changed from Revenge of the Jedi was because having one less letter would've saved hundreds of dollars in George Lucas' ink fund.

Metaphorgotten: Lots. "But when it gets going the story starts to suck, like someone pulling a thread out of a sweater until the sweater eventually sucks."

Mis-blamed: In-Universe. He points out that Lucas gets the majority of the flak for the prequel trilogy, but that things still could've been better if someone, anyone, had the courage to stand up during production and tell him that his ideas were terrible.

Mood Whiplash: Whenever Plinkett's other hobbies come up out of nowhere in the middle of a detailed analysis.

One of Plinkett's complains about the Trilogy, specifically noted in the Sith review, when he says the opening leaps between comedy, slapstick, dismemberment, and drama indiscriminately. It trails into a discussion about the use of Tone in films, and how comedies like Ghostbusters don't start off with someone getting violently raped on a pinball machine.

Plinkett spends the first half of his Titanic review, talking about what makes it good, saying it might be his favorite film. Then near the end of Part 1, he says "So let me, tell you why it SUCKS."

Multiple-Choice Past: Plinkett, who always seems to have a different recollection about his youth (which contradicts all of the other recollections).

Mysterious Stranger: Plinkett points out that in all three Star Wars prequel movies, the Trade Federation/Confederacy have little reason to trust or follow this mysterious shadowy figure who keeps calling them.

Grievious: Yes, Lord Sidious. Wait, who are you again, and where are you from?

Sidious: You don't need to know who I am or where I'm broadcasting this hologram from! Just do what I say!

"And I'm not mentioning this to say, like, they [the Nemesis writers] ripped off that plot or anything, but what they did do was rip off that plot."

No Hugging, No Kissing: In his review of The Force Awakens, Plinkett states that the lack of romance in the film made the cast feel robotic and alien to an extent compared to the original series where romance and sexuality was pervasive. He states that he would have settled for romance of any kind, including either Rey and Finn or even Finn and Poe.

Not So Different: In his review for Avatar, Plinkett says that, in real life, the tribal cultures that the Na'vi portrayed could be every bit as screwed up as the modern ones.

One Rick Limit: Averted. Over a picture of Rick McCallum: "Fuck you, Rick Berman! Ya ruined this, too?! STOP RUINING— wait. That ain't Rick Berman. What is it with Ricks?"

The One Thing I Don't Hate About You: During his review of The Force Awakens, he says that, while the film in question was definitely not without its flaws, just about the only thing he's legitimately willing to give the prequel trilogy over it is the fact that The Force Awakens is a "soft reboot" for A New Hope, whereas each one of the prequel films at the very least tells its own unique story, even if he thinks those stories are awful.

Only Sane Man: The First Contact guy, who points out how ridiculous Movie Picard and Padme's plans are.

Opinion Myopia: invokedPlayed for Laughs in Plinkett's Episode III trailer, where Palpatine shows a 108 page rebuttal he wrote to the TPM review. His opening lines explain how Plinkett is a stupidpants because he didn't like the prequels, and how the prequels were extremely complex "like a very deep game of chess where both players don't know how to play chess." This is in direct response to an actual rebuttal that surfaced on the internet that was 108 pages long.

"So do the prequels basically expose Lucas as being a shallow, emotionless businessman? I'll let you decide! — but the answer is yes."

"So, y'know. You might like the characters, you know... If you're stupid."

"Now, whether an idea is good or bad is subjective...Except for here, these are all bad ideas."

"Again: A matter of opinion, but mine is right."

"I guess everything is a matter of opinion, unless it's my opinion, and then it's right!"

Out-of-Character Moment: A major problem Mr. Plinkett has with the Next Generation movies is that Picard acts like an angry, vengeful, action movie character rather than a diplomatic captain who uses violence as a last resort.

Also, Plinkett points out how the Borg in First Contact randomly act like Frankenstein's monster. Plus Obi-Wan has random moments of being foolhardy and showing off in Episodes II and III.

Also considers Palpatine using a lightsaber and everything Yoda does in the prequels to be this.

As far as Plinkett himself goes, doesn't anyone else think him saying that he really liked Twilight was weird? Twilight is about a 100-year-old guy who looks young for his age who stalks someone ...Oh, wait.

Overly Long Gag: "And the four-letter-word I'm thinking of is 'fuck'. (Yoda stares) Naah I'm just kidding the word is 'crap'. (Yoda stares) Naah I'm just kidding the word is 'shit'. (Yoda stares) Naah I'm just kidding the word is 'poop'. (Yoda stares) Naah I'm just kidding the word is 'piss'. (Yoda stares) Naah I'm just kidding the word is 'garbage'. [Beat] (Yoda stares) Naah I'm just kidding the word is 'tone'."

Pet the Dog: Plinkett's review of "Revenge of the Sith" contains one of these in regards to Hayden Christensen, saying that Hayden himself is not a bad actor, just one handed bad lines.

Pinball Protagonist: Plinkett's explanation for why he doesn't consider Anakin the main character in Phantom Menace, due to him having little to no control over the events going on around him, even pointing out that him blowing up the trade federation ship at the end was an accident, and also because Anakin was introduced somewhat late in the film.

Plinkett also accuses Indiana Jones of indulging too much in this trope, and haphazardly at that. Because the film is set in the 50s and uses a Once Acceptable Target (the Russians) as the villains, the filmmakers try to compensate by playing up the flaws of 50s American culture...with an evil Men In Black subplot that goes absolutely nowhere and nonsensical lines like, "Of course I sold you out. I'm a capitalist."

Examined and eventually subverted in his review for The Force Awakens, where he dedicates a small part of the video to Disney going out of their way to give the movie a Cast of Snowflakes, the way Disney marketed and promoted this diversity, and why Disney would do so. He does conclude that the diversity isn't a bad thing at all, but that it's something most moviegoers, especially children, won't really care about all that much, and that it was most likely only done to make the movie more marketeable to people who would demand such a thing.

Popularity Power: Plinkett argues in the ROTS review that this kicks in for Darth Vader. Before the PT, Darth Vader was an iconic character and a symbol of the Empire, formerly a good man gone bad, but only one aspect of a larger story. However, in the prequels he becomes Space Jesus and the most pivotal man in the Galaxy. Plinkett believes this is because Vader is a popular and iconic figure, his life is central to not only the story, but to the in-story universe as well, when it was not suggested in the OT.

Plinkett also questions why in the world Padme would bother thanking R2-D2, "a piece of equipment". Why would the queen be ordered to clean a dirty droid? If she's thanking inanimate objects, why not thank the spaceship. This, despite in previous films R2-D2 was treated as just another machine by Luke and others. Once again, R2-D2 is famous to the viewer, not to the characters in the original film.

Mike & Jay get a lot of their samples from the Garageband library, since they edit their content on Macs. One such song is "Fifth Avenue Stroll", a jazz standard which plays over Establishing Shots of Plinkett's home and Lightning Fact VCR Repair. "West Precint" plays out each Half in the Bag review.

Mike (or rather Plinkett) is also fond of "Oranges", usually played when examining flaws in a script.

George Lucas' theme song appears to be "We're in the Money."

Really 700 Years Old: If he was a kid on the Titanic, he's no less than 100 years old, especially if he remembers bits of it. This is also supported by his claims to have sold big & tall menswear to President Taft, being in his forties back in 1950s, and to have had grandchildren in the 1960s.

Romantic Plot Tumor:invokedThe Attack of the Clones review becomes increasingly sidetracked by the Plinkett/Nadine storyline, as a deliberate contrast to the Anakin/Padme storyline in the movie.

Rooting for the Empire:invoked Not five minutes after being introduced to Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, Plinkett is shouting advice at the droids on how to poison them (as Plinkett has experience in that area).

Not technically rooting for the Empire, but Plinkett wonders how Obi-Wan automatically knows the Trade Federation attack on Naboo was unprovoked.

Mace Windu decapitating a poor working stiff who's just trying to make his way in the universe.(Jango Fett)

In Crystal Skull, McCarthyite America terrifies Plinkett way more than Spalko does.

Vader throwing poor Palpatine down a mine shaft.

Rule of Symbolism: The original, shorter Abrams Trek review. A girl gets dragged into an alley by the movie poster, then comes out looking disheveled yet satisfied. The idea was that J. J. Abrams took a bloated franchise and ruthlessly twisted it into something marketable again; Mike thinks this is a good thing in the long run. Of course, he had to address the joke in his extended review, explaining that he doesn't really believe Star Trek was "raped".

One riled up Star Wars fan threatened to punch Stoklasa in the face if they ever met in real life.

Unrelated to RLM, but a direct nod to Plinkett: a forum poster on WingCenter compared that "terrible person called Mike Stoklasa" with another web personality, The Spoony One (for his unflattering views on the Wing Commander film), and said they deserved to die in a car fire. Spoony referenced this in his Highlander II: The Quickening review, but left out the part about Plinkett.

Shaped Like Itself: "The fact is that this script feels rushed and not thought out, probably because it was rushed and not thought out."

Shoot The TV: Plinkett's ejaculation is powerful enough to do this, albeit unintentionally.

Show, Don't Tell: Plinkett's adamantly stresses visual storytelling as a virtue of the original films (particularly highlighting the opening of A New Hope) in contrast to how much blatant exposition though talking is given in the prequel films.

Shout-Out: Most younger viewers don't get the pinball table reference, which is a reference to the infamous rape scene from The Accused.

One of the Jedis lying in wait for Darth Maul is none other than...Star Wars Kid.invoked

Shown Their Work: Compared with the earlier TNG reviews, Stoklasa clearly makes an effort to begin the Phantom Menace review by piquing your interest and establishing his credentials as anything but an angry Fanboy. The first ten minutes include an explanation of basic storytelling, familiar examples of other movies which use those techniques successfully, lists of (better) filmmakers who don't use them, and interviews with people which demonstrate the poor characterization in the Phantom Menace. Don't expect to find any nerd rage directed at poor Jar Jar (though Plinkett calls him a "loathesome cunt" in the Revenge of the Sith review. He also refers to him as a "cartoon rabbit" that has been inserted "for babies".)

When asked in an interview why he didn't make fun of Jar-Jar in his TPM review, Stoklasa said that while Jar-Jar was a horrible character, he also had the most coherent story arc in TPM.

Sickbed Slaying: After Plinkett is hospitalized by Nadine, George Lucas himself arrives to unplug his respirator.

Significant Anagram: Mr Plinkett on the title of Episode 3: "[...] if you simply rearrange the letters in the word 'SITH,' you could spell out a different word that just might predict what this movie was gonna be: TSHI'note (which is Chinese for 'disappointed in the cooking of the duck meat.')"

Spoof Aesop: Baby's Day Out has a lesson all of us can relate to. "If you live in a giant mansion and want a picture of your baby in the paper, you better care about your baby too, or else he'll get kidnapped, crawl across a busy street, and a truck will drive over him."

Stalker with a Crush: Towards the woman held captive in the Attack of the Clones review. He just needs someone to share his pain!

Stealth Pun: He refers to the Neimoidians as the "Shatnerians", a double pun on the fact that their actual name sounds like Leonard Nimoy's surname, as well as how they talk much like the typical Shatner parody.

Stockholm Syndrome: Over the course of the Attack of the Clones review, Nadine becomes increasingly sympathetic towards Plinkett. Subverted in the end, when it turns out to have been a ruse, which allowed her to escape... but then Double Subverted in Revenge of Nadine, when she discovers that her time with Plinkett has impressed upon her a disdain for bad movies which ultimately leads her to save his life, so that he can make more reviews.

The Crystal Skull opens with a YouTube comment calling him a "fat homo" for splitting his time between Half in the Bag. Later on, Plinkett mentions that audiences love "sameness and predictability", then interjects with the tired pizza roll gag.

Tweet: Technically, the Titanic didn't split down the middle. It split between the third and fourth funnels, which is not really in half! CHECK YOUR FACTS! Plinkett: ...W-What? What the fuck? Tweet:UNSUBSCRIBE!

"J. J. Abrams should have directed the prequels, and George Lucas should have directed people to their seats in the theater. Huh huh huh"

In the Revenge of the Sith review, when talking about Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon not being in the film as one of the good things about it, he ponders that if the Falcon had appeared, its original owner might have been a terrible, generic looking CGI character. When the Falcon pulls into Cloud City in the video, the character sitting in its cockpit is Shrek.

The euphemism for autograph booths is the "celebrity zoo"; places where endangered B-list actors go after their habitat (Star Wars) has ceased to sustain them.

[T]his is just some random crappy Indiana Jones adventure. Lord knows they're have been plenty of those already. (cueYoung Indiana Jonestitle card)

"The entire senate is filled with stupid idiots. *picture of the US Senate* ...y-yeah, okay, that's true. Yes. But I was talking about this senate. *shot of the Galactic Senate from the Star Wars prequels."

"The Force Awakens" 'review' is a big one towards all the incredibly overdramatic reactions to a trailer that Plinkett deems reveals far, far too little.

The actual The Force Awakens review features a curious one. Plinkett claims its not surprising that Rey does not display romantic feelings for anyone considering that she grew up only with Simon Pegg as company, which is surprising considering he praised the prequel Plinkett reviews.

"Why are you watching this movie? In fact, why are you listening to me talk about this movie? Why are listening to this commentary? What the hell is wrong with you!?"

Talking to Himself: Smash Cuts are a frequent occurrence, making it seem like Plinkett interrupts himself. Before finishing a sentence, the screen will switch and he'll break out with the next point he's making. It seems to be a massively efficient and time-saving maneuver, as there are plenty of ideas the viewer understands before Plinkett completes the entire thought.invoked

The Tape Knew You Would Say That: "Special effects are just tools. A means of telling a story. People have a tendency to confuse them as ends themselves. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing." — George Lucas.

Mike's promotional popcorn tub for Titanic's initial release date suggests a more action-oriented film, including the tagline, "Collide With Destiny." Compare to the finished tagline, "Nothing On Earth Can Keep Them Apart."

"But something DID keep them apart. It was an iceberg! Oh wait, it said 'nothing on Earth', an iceberg's in the water. I get it..."

They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: invoked Plinkett regrets the missed potential lesbian sex scene between the mother and the nanny in "Baby's Day Out" since Lara Flynn Boyle and Cynthia Nixon have "done their fair share of dirty roles, why can't they make room for that here?".

He points out that the Clone War from the Prequel Trilogy had its impact greatly lessened by the fact that the heroes are pitting their disposable army of clones against the villains' even more disposable army of robots. After a disclaimer that he doesn't normally want to speculate on how to "fix" the prequels, he goes into detail about how it would've been more interesting if the clones were an invasive force attacking Coruscant from some unknown source in space and inflicting such damage that Coruscant was forced to institute a draft, resulting in millions of deaths, the vibrant, futuristic society shown in Episode I becoming far more run-down and barren by Episode III, and making Palpatine's tricking the people and senate into giving complete power to him so easily more believable, since it would parallel the tactics of many real life dictators.

He points out that Anakin's temptation would have been more effective if he were portrayed as a kind family man from the beginning, who only loses his way and falls to the Dark Side at the end of the trilogy, whereas in the actual series, he's portrayed as already being unstable from fairly early on.

Unconventional Learning Experience: Because these reviews go into great detail regarding the technically and structural flaws in a film, they actually serve as a decent crash course for the layman to understand screenwriting and filmmaking. It's part of what initially set them apart from other online video reviews.

With Plinkett's nigh-constant fits of insanity (not to mention the amount of booze and drugs he takes), it's impossible to take practically anything he says for granted. Apart from his opinions on films, which are invariably spot on.

Nadine isn't exactly truthful, but then again, she's trying to escape Plinkett, so the entire "baby" might be a ploy.

Wearing a Flag on Your Head: Plinkett has a starring role in RLM's film Feeding Frenzy, in which he's wearing a tacky jacket with an American flag emblazoned over it. The jacket frequently reappears in Half in the Bag.

Willing Suspension of Disbelief: According to Plinkett, gets broken when characters act like weird, unrelatable space aliens (which they are) and by seeing live-action actors put into physically impossible and unsurvivable situations, such as in Baby's Day Out and Attack of the Clones, that serve only to draw attention to the artifice.

In the Attack of the Clones review, he criticizes the idea of Dooku being able to use Force Lightning. Specifically, he explains how in Return of the Jedi, that Emperor Palpatine being able to use Force Lightning was more of a storytelling tool than a literal ability, meant to demonstrate just how powerful and evil Palpatine was, and imply that he has even more abilities like that up his sleeve. When Dooku does it, he claims he can't take it seriously because it trivializes the impact of the ability, likening it to a power-up a video game character gets from reaching Level 50 Sith status. He claims he was honestly surprised that Yoda didn't start shooting out green lightning at him too.

Speaking of Yoda, he describes the reserved, mentor like Yoda of the original trilogy as a believable character who was there to demonstrate an ethereal quality of the force. For the prequels, he criticizes his over the top, "windmill on a pogo-stick" style of fighting and acrobatics as cartoony and completely unbelievable, seeing them as just a way to show off fancy effects and video game style stunts while flying in the face of the original nature of Yoda's character.

Wolverine Publicity: Plinkett mocks Revenge of the Sith for heavily hyping up Darth Vader's appearance (in his iconic armor) in all of the trailers, commercials, merchandise and tie-ins, even though Vader only has 2 minutes of screentime in the entire movie.

Yes-Man: Everyone surrounding Lucas during the making of the prequel films, but especially his right-hand man Rick McCallum. This backfires when he finally sees the rough cut of The Phantom Menace:

Plinkett: Rick McCallum is frozen in utter shock at horrible the movie was. Internally, he regrets not challenging Lucas on some of the things he was worried about.

Continuity Reboot: In their trailer for "New Alien Commentary Track", Jay and Mike mentions that the new Alien movie is going to ignore Alien³ and Resurrection. Mike then comments that "if the movie doesn't get the box office results you want", the makers could just retcon or even reboot the series, with examples like the Superman, Hulk, and Spider-Man films... and redoing Game Station 2.0 as Previously Recorded:.

Gag Penis: The alien cocks in "The Great Space Jam" are unusually long and used as weapons.

Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Rosemary The Whore from "The Western Ore Musical". Flint lampshades this when he says "Hey, there, whore with your heart of gold."

Rosemary: You see, Mr. Eastrock that where you are wrong, ever since I was a little girl, I've loved things that are hard. But mama misunderstood me and pushed into a life of prostitution. When really it was my love for rocks, minerals, and ore, especially ore.

Memetic Mutation: invoked Conversed. In "The United States of Noooo!", Mike discusses the meme status of Darth Vader'sBig "NO!" He mentions that before it became big on the internet, he thought he and Rich were the only ones who found it funny.

So Unfunny, It's Funny: "101 Wacky Kids Jokes" Parts 1 and 2. They even do a "with kids" edition where they read the titular book to two kids to see their reaction. One kid hates the jokes and ends up ignoring them. The other kid laughed a lot. But it's hard to if it was at jokes or at Mike and Rich.

That Was Not A Dream: Mike in "The United States of Noooooo!" wakes up and says he had a bad dream about the ending of Revenge of the Sith stumbling out of a contraption and screaming "No", then invoked the Trope.

Twist Ending: In "Das Foot", there's a guy going around chopping off women's feet. It looks like it's Mike's character. It turns out that he did chop the 1st woman's foot off. But the guy behind the rest of them was her finance. He was trying to find a replacement foot for her after she died.

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